Good morning. It’s Ann Hui, demographics reporter, filling in for Danielle Groen. The issue of international students – and immigration, more generally – are in the spotlight once again. More on that below, but first:
Today’s headlines
- Liberal MP Alexandra Mendès doesn’t believe the party can win the next election with Trudeau at the top of the ticket.
- Air Canada is preparing for a strike or lockout as the airline says that it and the pilots union are “far apart” at the bargaining table. (Plus, what travellers need to know.)
- The wives of NHL star Johnny Gaudreau and his brother, Matthew, remember the hockey players as intensely loving, humble and inseparable during an emotional joint funeral on Monday.
A cyclist passes a protest-encampment on the side of a busy road in Brampton, Ont., calling for better pathways to permanent residency, September 6, 2024.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
International students
Hard lessons from foreign students
Schools are back in session. And, after the federal government’s changes to curb the number of international students in this country, the consequences have been on full display this past week.
Postsecondary reporter Joe Friesen wrote on the many challenges colleges and universities faced planning for this school year – including the financial consequences of a major drop in enrolment. Vanmala Subramaniam, The Globe’s future of work reporter, wrote about the human costs: Tens of thousands of temporary residents who came here as international students are suddenly left scrambling without options to stay. And Frances Bula wrote about how some college towns are suddenly seeing a downturn in their rental markets.
Most recently, student visa approvals are projected to drop by almost half this year, according to an analysis based on government figures.
I spoke with Joe Friesen about what’s happening:
How did we get here?
About a decade or so ago, governments were looking for ways to encourage institutions to generate more of their own revenue. International students were one of the avenues that they looked to, and it was very successful. Over the course of about 10 years, the number of international students in Canada tripled.
In the last year or two, we started to see some of the stresses that come from that rapid growth. In cities with universities and colleges, for example, rental markets got really tight. The country didn’t plan to have this many additional temporary residents – not just students, but temporary workers too – all at the same time, and just didn’t build enough housing for everyone. The other thing was that the program to bring in international students didn’t really have a cap, so it wasn’t being managed.
So in January of this year, the federal government said it would cap the number of new international study permits at 360,000. It later revised that number down further, to about 290,000.
You wrote about how that cap has played out. International enrolment is down between 35-45 per cent at colleges and universities. Is there a sense that the government has overcorrected?
When I spoke to Immigration Minister Marc Miller, he was suggesting that some of the things we’re seeing are indications that the policy is working as it was intended. Many of these things you would have predicted in January: that you might see a bit of a loosening in the rental market, that universities and colleges would see a revenue hit.
Can you talk about how politicized this issue has become? And how the students themselves are feeling?
I was in Brampton, Ont., last week at a protest camp set up by former international students. The students that I spoke to feel as though they’ve been blamed for many things that are much bigger than them.
They feel as though they were a boon to Canada in that their tuition helped keep universities and colleges going. They’re a big, big revenue source – up to a third of revenue in some places. They feel that they were the ones who showed up in the pandemic, who went to work when it was difficult. And now they’re being told that there’s no opportunity to stay permanently – that they had dreams of staying here and building a life, and it looks like it may not happen.
With a potential federal election on the horizon, how do you think the issue of international students will continue to play out?
Postsecondary issues don’t typically jump to the top of any federal election. But this is bigger than just that. This is also about all the temporary residents who have been working here, for several years, contributing, and now would like to stay.
And if we put international students into the basket of immigration – the number of new people who are coming into the country, which has been relatively high over the last few years – I think this will be something that people are discussing.
This interview has been edited and condensed
The Shot
The ‘exchange fund’
Russian border guards captured during the offensive of Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region in a detention centre on Thursday, September 5, 2024, Sumy region.Olga Ivashchenko/The Globe and Mail
Russian soldiers who have been seized during Ukraine’s Kursk incursion as potential bounty for future prisoner swaps wait out their days under the watchful eye of military staff.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has called them the “exchange fund,” for future prisoner swaps that could bring home some of the 6,500 Ukrainians that Russia is believed to be holding prisoner. There were 92 Russian POWs in the facility when The Globe and Mail visited on Thursday.
Nearly all of the prisoners said they were from the Kursk region, and now, they fear that their families don’t know whether they are alive or dead. In accordance with the Geneva Conventions, The Globe spoke only to Russian prisoners who agreed to be interviewed, and is not using their real names or showing their faces in photos. Read more here.
The Wrap
What else we’re following
U.S. election: To prepare for Tuesday night’s Harris-Trump debate, we present debate-night bingo.
Royalty: Catherine, the Princess of Wales, has completed her chemotherapy and says she is “cancer free.”
From the courts: In Alberta, two men convicted over the Coutts blockade have been sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison. In Ontario, Peter Nygard has been sentenced to 11 years for sexual assault.
Electric vehicles: Northvolt AB, the Swedish battery maker building a $7-billion factory in Quebec, says it will shrink its operations in Europe and cut jobs as a slowdown in electric-vehicle demand forces the company to rethink its ambitious plans.